Alina Gritskova, Tina Karlsson
Sornnimul Khut, Kakhi Sanikidze
Politicians as Media Producers
Nowadays many politicians use social media and the number is growing. One of the reasons is
that the web is a perfect medium for genuine grass-root political movements. It is also
transforming the power dynamics of politics. There are no barriers to entry websites such as
Facebook or Youtube, at least in western countries where social media is most commonly used.
Unique characteristic of online media is that they accelerate the transmission of content and are
accessible to large numbers of people. For politicians it is also an inexpensive mean of
conducting voter outreach and a mean to target younger voters.
2008 US election was the first one in which all candidates, presidential and congressional,
attempted to connect directly with American voters via online social networking sites like
Facebook and MySpace. Barack Obama gained over 5 million “supporters” during 2008
presidential election campaign. A number of 5 million does not sound impressive looking at it
from today’s perspective when several A-list public figures boast fan bases of over 50 millions
but it is important to consider that a number of Facebook users in 2008 was way less than it is
now. (Also here we used a term “Supporter” instead of “liker” because back in 2008 Facebook
pages could be “supported” instead of “liked.” Later for commercial purposed Facebook changed
it to “like” because it was researched that people would “like” more politicians, celebrities or all
kinds of inanimate objects than “support” them.) Second most “supported” politicians in 2008
was John McCain. It is a well defined pattern, even today, that Democrat American politicians
have embraced social media better than Republicans.
Social Media and its role was so important in 2008 US presidential elections that often it is
called “Facebook elections.” Obama's landmark victory was due, in part, to a groundswell of
support among young Americans and as we said previously young people assemble a great
number of social media users. Later exit polls revealed that Obama had won nearly 70 percent of
the vote among Americans aged 25 or younger which was the highest figures in the American
exit poll history. It is also worth to mention that One of Obama's key strategists was 24-year-old
Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder, which does not make Obama’s online success look
coincident at all.
Alina Gritskova, Tina Karlsson
Sornnimul Khut, Kakhi Sanikidze
Social Media brought many significant changes to both journalism and political routines and,
according to the article, the rise of online political communication in its turn developed into a
more complex relationship between journalists and politicians. The authors of the article present
three types of researches that can help one to grasp the way political representatives and press
cooperate in order to produce news.
Sources appear to be a fundamental part of all forms of professional journalism: they provide
information, background and broader contexts of the investigated problem(s). Therefore, they
should be rationally chosen in order to produce material of high reliability, accuracy and
currentness. Source producers, politicians using social media in this case, are a priori willing to
find themselves in the very centre of things and are building their media strategy with the aim to
satisfy the journalistic need for a certain piece of information. This idea lies behind the first
research type indicated in the article - the classical works on “media logic” by Altheide and
Snow, Hernes, who considered media to have an ability to influence the behaviours and modes
of communication of other social institutions. Hence, politicians and political institutions need to
adapt their strategies and operations so that they fit the logic of the media, since this is journalists
who have the power to select and process information and therefore play the role of a filter.
A second type of research is in contrast focused on the journalistic adaptation to the New Media
Age. The shift to digital ways of collection and distribution of information has caused difficulties
for most of the media companies: high dependence on external resources (raw materials), need
for resources for critical scrutiny, fact checking and investigative reporting plus the appearance
of new alternative forms of communication that makes sources to active news makers
themselves. As a result, media producers no longer have monopoly over public information and
therefore should be able to find new ways of cooperation with politicians and public and rebuild
the traditional models of media production.
A third type of research focuses on both of the parties, journalists and politicians, and their
interaction. The scholars maintain the importance that both of the actors feel that they gain from
cooperation and suggest the “mediatized interdependency” theory that underlines the necessity of
mutual interaction in order to provide an efficient news flow. Thus, this development results in
that journalists and politicians become both “media actors” and “media sources”. It is, however,
doubtful that these are the only actors in media production space. According to the article, the
Social Media makes it easier for citizen-users to participate in new forms of multicommunication practices and therefore contribute to the processes of news production by, for
instance, taking part in online discussions or participating in political campaigns.
Alina Gritskova, Tina Karlsson
Sornnimul Khut, Kakhi Sanikidze
Another important aspect discussed in the article is the journalistic value of information
produced by politicians. According to the research, there are two factors that are most likely to
make a news material successful: negativity and personification. Scandals and intrigues as well
as politicians’ private life attract more attention from citizens than “serious” political statements,
which becomes an evidence of de-politicization processes in politicians-journalists-citizens
interaction.
Sweden and Norway are characterized by high levels of Internet use among citizens and elected
officials thus our group decided to research further and use examples from usage of social media
by Scandinavian politicians as well (namely Norwegian and Swedish). Indeed Sweden and
Norway, along with Iceland compile a list of top 3 countries with highest rates of Internet users.
Politicians of these countries also actively use social media platforms. In this research the data is
provided on two social media networks: Facebook and Twitter. A sample included a total of 570
politicians – 193 from Norway and 377 from Sweden.
Researchers examined all Twitter accounts and Facebook pages (not personal accounts on
Facebok) belonging to these politicians. Quantitative data revealed that Twitter is used twice
more commonly than Facebook. 58% of Norwegian politicians have Twitter account, and very
similar number (57%) of Swedes is also present there. On the other hand fewer politicians
engage with their supporters on Facebook, exactly 24% of Norwegians and 19% of Swedes. As
a conclusion we could assume that:

While both Sweden and Norway continually report high percentages of Internet use
among a majority of age groups, the use of social media is primarily related to younger
cohorts.

Younger representatives engage more frequently online.

No significant differences could be discerned between either the countries.

No significant differences were shown between the use of Social Media by females and
males.
Larsson and Kalsnes, The researchers of the article found out that there is a mismatch between
the use of social media among the politicians and voters in the two countries. Majority of
politicians, once again, use Twitter as mean to disseminate information to and gather their voters,
while majority of voters in the countries use Facebook. Twitter is believed to be used by only
elite, urban, media-savvy groups, while ordinary citizens, citizens living in rural areas use
Facebook. Without further due, the researchers recommended politicians to look beyond Twitter.
Alina Gritskova, Tina Karlsson
Sornnimul Khut, Kakhi Sanikidze
But the question is: Why majority of politicians use Twitter Rather Than Facebook to gather
supporter/ voters?
One among many possible reasons behind the fact that majority of politicians use Twitter rather
than Facebook is that there is parallel trend of Twitter use among journalists and Politicians.
According to Widholm (2013), there is a remarkable increase of the Twitter use among
journalists from 48% in 2011 to 68% in 2013 and slight decrease of Facebook use among
journalists from 77% in 2011 to 68% in 2013. Most of the journalists use Twitter for their work.
They collect information, data, interesting quotes from politicians, famous people on Twitter and
put them in their articles/ stories. Since politicians still believe in the power of the Old / Mass
Media and in order to draw attention of those journalists and increase their presence on Mass
Media, politicians decided to employ Twitter as mean though not many voters use Twitter
compared to Facebook. Sadly, the article did not mention how many politicians use both Twitter
and Facebook for their election campaign/ gathering supports from voters, which is part of our
critique on the article.
Normalization theory, according to Margolis et al., (1999: p.26) suggests that ‘patterns of
socioeconomic and political relationships on-line come to resemble those of the real world’. Old
and well established politicians in general with secure place in Parliamentary still have practiced
Normalization theory (except for few well established politicians who use Facebook and
Twitter), strongly believe in the power of mass media and see no importance/ power of social
media in gathering more supporters for their party. Well linked with and being in the spotlight of
journalists, they are picked up by journalists and have their presence on mass media. However,
young and new politicians from small parties considered as Underdog politicians are not known
and on the spotlight among journalists, so they don’t have presence in the mass media. However,
to reach out to voters directly without getting through mass media, those politicians have used
social media, Twitter especially, and post and twitter their opinion about particular issues.
Chances are possible for them to get quoted by journalists and appear on Mass Media. In the
information and technological age, young and new politicians see the Internet in general,
especially social media, Facebook and Twitter in particular as place where they can build up
their own reputation among voters and journalists. And thank to Internet affordance, it almost
costs nothing and is easy to operate social media on the Internet. Politicians can run their
campaign permanently through social media without pause.
Alina Gritskova, Tina Karlsson
Sornnimul Khut, Kakhi Sanikidze
Searching for quotes on Twitter has developed into an established journalistic routine, while the
inclusion of tweets in news discourse has become an established textual convention. An
explanation for this could be that due to the fact that everyone now can have a voice and spread
their thoughts, politicians no longer have to hunt down journalists to get their word out there.
This might explain why news papers now go looking for news in, for example, public social
media.
Politicians using social media and publishing their own statement is a natural expansion brought
on by the development of Web 2.0, where the targeted group is used to having information
straight from the source instead of from a second hand source, such as news papers. Thus, by
conforming to these new standards, politicians are trying to please a new kind of media user,
while, at the same time, make up a picture of themselves that might not be known otherwise,
where they can be personal and interact on a person to person level with voters. And of course, if
your competition is using new ways of spreading information and gaining support, you have to
follow not to be left behind.
Morozov uses the example of Chavez (Morozov 2011:113), the Venezuelan president, who
joined Twitter when the opposition party started to use social media to gather supporters.
Chavez’s main idea for Twitter was to find another channel through which he could
communicate directly to citizens, and the account had as many as 3.2 million followers, and a
team of people sorting through the incoming replies, looking for those that should be answered.
He used Twitter both as a way of spreading information, sharing personal thoughts and
experiences, as well as communicating with the people. In the book Morozov also quotes
Chavez, when he’s saying “The Internet can’t be just for the bourgeoisie; it’s for the ideological
battle as well”, which is a clear indication that he thought political change could be done using
social media as a stepping stone.
In the article, they realize in their research that Tweets from politicians are often forwarded to
news in a negative context. It is hard to say why this might be, but one reason could be that it is
easier to sell news papers that criticize politicians, but also because the journalists still consider
being skeptic towards politicians a part of their work as a both gatekeepers and as guard dogs of
democracy.
Mediatization can be explained as a process that changes the modes of interaction between
various social and cultural institutions as a consequence of the media’ s major role and influence
in society. This means, on the one hand, that the media become integrated into the functions and
Alina Gritskova, Tina Karlsson
Sornnimul Khut, Kakhi Sanikidze
operations of societal institutions, but also, on the other hand, that interaction within and between
institutions to a greater extent is performed through the interaction with a medium.
Finally, we believe both journalists and politicians should create effective strategies and keep the
status of interdependence in order to maintain a news flow in digital age.
References:
Earl. J, Klimport. K “Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet age”
Ekman M, Widholm. A. “Politicians as Media Producers”
Larsson. A.O, Kalsnes. B. ”Of course we are on Facebook’: Use and non-use of social media
among Swedish and Norwegian politicians”
Margolis M, Resnick D, Wolfe JD et al. (1999) Party competition on the Internet in the United
States and Britain. Harvard International Journal of Press-Politics 4(4): 24–47.
Morozov. E. “The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom”
Williams C.B, Gulati G.J. “Facebook Grows Up: An Empirical Assessment of its Role in the
2008 Congressional Elections”